The LXI Summit of Presidents of the States Parties to Mercosur and Associated States took place this Tuesday, the 6th, in Montevideo.
The session was headed by the president of Uruguay, Luis Lacalle Pou, who stated that he is optimistic about the future of the bloc and that it must modernize to compete on equal terms in the international arena. In addition, he indicated that our country is far from a disruptive vision.
The presidents of Argentina, Alberto Fernández; and Paraguay, Mario Abdo Benítez, and the Vice President of Brazil, Hamilton Mourão.
Lacalle Pou gave the words of welcome and expressed his gratitude to all the hierarchs for attending the meeting. Then, the Undersecretary of the Foreign Ministry, Carolina Ache, reported on the progress made during the presidency pro tempore of Uruguay, exercised in the last semester.
In his speech, Lacalle Pou maintained that agreements must be sought at the meeting on all issues, but that in any circumstance the bloc must be thought with an eye to the future, since the world is different compared to when it was founded, 31 years ago. years. “The world does not wait for us, it advances”, he affirmed.
In addition, he pointed out that this summit is reached with tensions, but that life is about resolving these situations and seeking a fair balance. In this sense, he considered that each member of the bloc must fight for the national interest, first, and for the well-being of its partners, in the background.
For this, he asserted, each country must say clearly and sincerely what it expects from the bloc. In the case of Uruguay, he reiterated what he stated at the last summit, in Asunción, Paraguay, that foreign policy opens up to the world.
He also stated that the negotiating power of the countries, to move forward together, is better, and that is what Uruguay wants; however, if that does not happen, the country will not wait. “The one who stays still falls behind,” he said.
Then, he affirmed the will to conclude agreements with other blocs, such as the European Union, and reviewed the critical position of that body, which raises objections to the completion of the negotiations. “We cannot be 25 years to sign an agreement, it is not serious,” he valued.
Regarding this, he recalled that when he communicated to the Mercosur partners that negotiations for a free trade agreement with China would begin, he took the same position as today, to inform, but to invite the partners to join, and that something The same is true of the talks with Turkey and the Trans-Pacific Agreement on Economic Cooperation.
“Here it is not about rupture, we must remove it from our collective imagination, here it is about resolving tensions,” Lacalle Pou highlighted.
At the closing of the ceremony, the formal transfer of the presidency was executed pro tempore of Mercosur, from Uruguay to Argentina, through the traditional delivery of the hammer, which symbolizes the hierarchy of the bloc.
On behalf of the bloc’s associated states, the Bolivian Minister of Foreign Relations, Rogelio Mayta; the head of the Regional Integration Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chile, Mauricio Hurtado; the Director of Regional Agreement and Integration Organizations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Colombia, Javier Higuera, and the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ecuador, Luis Vayas.
